apartments.com
Overview
A personal project redesigning apartments.com, focusing on how to facilitate a more pleasant experience while finding a rental. Redesigning the interface to be more personable and intuitive.
My personal goals were to push myself creatively while keeping in mind the user functionality of the app. I also wanted to finish a project from start to finish while working with a team.
Role
Product Designer
User Researcher
Prototyping/Testing
Visual Design
3 months
SunAh Lee | Jasmin Yang
*the views of this case study are strictly my own and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of apartments.com
Background
Since 1992, Apartments.com has become a major player in the renting scene matching renters with property managers and owners.
Apartments.com reaches over 9 million subscribers through their network
and with key features such as their polygon tool and “my commute” tool, they are committed to making finding rentals easy. Despite their impressive reach, we found that the fundamentals of the app were problematic. I wanted to challenge myself to find a solution and to finish a project from start to finish using human-centered design
Process
We took a user-centric approach by using the five-stage Thinking Model proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (d.school). It was necessary to have participants to test the app throughout each process so that we could create a tailored product.
Empathize
Before beginning our redesign of apartments.com, we interviewed then tested the existing app with 6 participants who have moved or were looking to move. Our goals were to discover what pain points, if any, renters faced while using the app and which areas were most problematic.
We focused on:
Understanding the user’s goals and needs
Discovering current pain points in the user journey
Measuring task success
The interviews helped us to discover pain points that all or most were experiencing:
Heuristic Evaluation
A heuristic evaluation using the Nielsen Norman Group’s 10 Usabilility Heuristics was conducted to test the app’s usability status. We believe that by resolving the following issues we will be improving the user’s satisfaction and experience:
Elements that are not needed or irrelevant that take up too much space such as those in the listing view
Icons used were either confusing or unclear which took away from the efficiency of the app
Valuable information was often not included or not easily visible
Competitor Analysis
We compared apartments.com with 5 other major competitors in the rental space to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses relative to our own.
We discovered that:
Apartments.com was the only company to have a ‘My Commute’ feature which helps renters calculate their commute.
Apartments.com has a wide reach; every participant has heard of and have used the app/site to view listings.
Although apartments.com is reputable, with a wide reach, there are several areas that we could improve in order to stay competitive:
Updating trustworthy listings in real-time
Providing more information on neighborhood safety and conveniences
Updating the interface to be more intuitive to users
Incorporating tools for renters such as calendar and rent calculator
“How can we improve and create an innovative platform to form a deeper engagement with the user?”
Define
We gathered all our findings and moved on to the next step of defining our point-of-view. We conducted affinity mapping and created a user persona based on our findings.
Affinity Map
After our interviews, we created an affinity map to help us brainstorm and organize our findings and insights.
User Persona
We created a user persona based on our findings during the usability testing to help keep us focused on the renter’s goals and tasks while using the app.
Customer Journey Map
We created a customer journey map to help visually tell the story of our customer’s experiences across all touch points.
this led us to our problem statement:
We believe that by prioritizing and providing certain key features, renters will achieve a quick and easy experience finding apartments.
We will know this is true when renters are satisfied and there is greater success in finding rentals through apartments.com.
Ideate
All participants in the interview stated that their #1 objective about finding an apartment is location, location, location. When it comes to the neighborhood, safety is the priority and living nearby their place of work and conveniences follow closely behind. Other areas of concern were being able to find and view reliable listings easily and effortlessly.
We decided to focus on improving the following:
Neighborhood safety information - priority
Improving filter options to find listings that match the wants and needs of the user
Implementing a new way to communicate with rental owners and managers
User Flow
Site Map
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Medium Fidelity Wireframes
Prototype.
More Options
Now, renters have a wide variety of filters choose from to find their perfect home easily. Filter icons are easy to understand and laid out to be visually pleasing to the eye.
Before
Before
More Information
Now renters can see what matters to them most first. With features such as ‘map view’, ‘street view’, ‘crime’, and ‘schools’ located near the top of the listing, users can easily discover more about the neighborhood. There is also more detailed information of the neighborhood than before.
More Tools
With new features such as the calendar, renters are able to easily schedule viewings, view open house schedules, and set alerts right from the app. The app gives users all the tools to help them keep organized while looking for a new home.
apartments.com
your new home awaits.
Test
Testing was conducted remotely and in person with 6 people. All participants were given 3 scenarios to help validate that the changes we made were helpful:
Find an apartment. You are looking to move to Koreatown, Los Angeles. It is important that the apartment have a washer/dryer, AC, garage, and gym. Show me how you would go about this.
Check out the neighborhood. It’s important that the apartment is located in a safe area while still close to restaurants and markets. How would you find this information?
Schedule an Open House. The listing is located in a great area and has all the amenities you want. You would like to view the apartment and schedule a viewing. How would you schedule the viewing?
Findings
Overall, the redesign of apartments.com had a positive feedback on the rental finding experience. All participants liked the clean, new, and modern aesthetic of the app.
Some UI elements were too small such as icons and buttons
All participants were able to navigate through the app to complete all tasks easily